Spinal stenosis symptoms are gradual but steady!

Stenosis is a Greek term which means choking. Basically, your spine consists of 26 bones in your back which enables you to stand up and produce several body movements. So, the symptoms of spinal stenosis are responsible for various body movements. An important function of spinal column is to protect your spinal cord. People who are suffering from the spinal stenosis have narrowed spines. There are three sections of the spine which get affected or narrowed due to aging process or as part of an inborn defect of the bones.

* The central point of the spine which has some space in it.
* The nerves canals or the cavities from where the nerves come out of the spine.
* There is little room between the vertebrae bones and it gets narrowed.

Narrowing down of the bones puts stress on the spinal cord and that results in severe pain. Since all the body parts are correlated with the spine and are directly or indirectly dependent on the spine and any defect in them affects other body parts, the symptoms of spinal stenosis affect different body movements. Generally, a patient may experience leg pain (sciatica), lower back pain, slight numbness of the leg and walking problems are main signs of spinal stenosis. Lumbar and cervical are the two basic types of spinal stenosis which affect legs and arms respectively.

Symptoms of spinal stenosis can be listed as below:

* Sciatica pain or leg pain that also affects the lower back.
* Diverging pain, slight numbness, and weakness of one or both the legs.
* Foot is also affected and one may face problems while walking
* During a walk or standing, one may lose balance.
* An interrupted bowel, bladder and sexual activity and the improper leg movement of the legs is very common symptom.
* Pain in neck, back, arms, shoulders and hand movements are very pronounced.
* Numbness, weakness and cramping can be experienced in the arms.

Spinal stenosis symptoms can be characterized as following:

The symptoms progress gradually that means symptoms grow from bad to worse over the period of the time.
The symptoms may arise and disappear and they are not constant.
The pain may occur while performing body movements like walking, sitting or ironing the clothes.
After taking proper rest you may get some relief but after some time they reappear.

After recognizing these symptoms, one should immediately consult his or her physician. To track down the state of the illness, a series of spinal stenosis diagnosis tests may follow. Diagnostic techniques for spinal stenosis are either an MRI scan or a CT scan with myelogram and sometimes both are performed.